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This full-page color drawing by I.E. Plekhanov entitled "Shakhmatnyi turnir. Stranichka iz srednevekovogo al'boma" (A Chess Tournament. A Page from a Medieval Album) depicts two state officials standing over a chessboard. The king is threatened with checkmate and has nowhere to go, which suggests the failure of tsarist power in Russia. The drawing is signed: "Ris. khud. [picture by artist] P." The collector D.I. Koltel'nikov penciled in above: "I.E. Plekhanov (Masanov)" meaning that the artist was identified using Masanov's dictionary of pseudonyms.; The official on the right resembles Konstantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev, a powerful elder statesman and adviser to three tsars, whose gloomy face indicates that he is helpless to save the tsar and the absolute monarchy, despite his preference for reactionary and conservative politics. The other state official, whose face is half-hidden behind his coat, may be Count Sergei Iul'evich Witte, the prime minister of Russia from November 6,1905, until May 5, 1906. He is holding the October Manifesto in his right hand and making a shy offering gesture with his left hand. Obviously, Witte is also unable to gain control of the situation and save the game. The time on the clock between Pobedonostev and Witte goes backwards, which may either imply the "backwardness" of the tsarist regime or the impossibility of turning the clock back to a time of a strong autocracy. The black eagle sitting on the clock symbolizes imperial power, whose time is now ticking away. All the symbolic elements of the drawing suggest the inevitability of checkmate for the tsarist regime, which will not be saved by a paper promise of civil freedoms (Natalia Dame, USC).